Read news from:
Austria
SHARE
COPY LINK

ITALY

Italian firm gets Qatar World Cup contract

Qatar has awarded Italian firm Salini Impregilo a €770 million ($859 million) contract to build and operate a stadium for the 2022 World Cup, the company said on Thursday.

Published: 9 July 2015 17:31 CEST
Italian firm gets Qatar World Cup contract
Foreign labourers work at the construction site of a new stadium in Qatar. Photo: Marwan Naamani / AFP

The company will build Al Bayt stadium in al-Khor city, north of Doha, shaped after the Bayt al-Shaar black and white traditional bedouin tent.

The Italian firm said on its website it had beaten competitors from France, Austria and Asia for the contract to build a stadium that could accommodate 70,000 spectators.

The contract includes €716 million euro for construction and over €53 million euro for operations and maintenance, it said.

In addition, the company won a contract worth €300 million to build main urban infrastructures in Shamal, some 100 kilometres (186 miles) from the capital.

Salini Impregilo is already working on building part of Doha Metro and a water project.

Energy-rich Qatar is undergoing a huge spending splurge on infrastructure, worth around $200 billion, much of it related to the World Cup.

Qatar's successful bid was originally to host the tournament in the months of June and July but a Fifa decision earlier this year decided on an unprecedented switch to play the tournament in the months of November and December 2022 because of the extreme summer temperatures in the Gulf.

Member comments

Log in here to leave a comment.
Become a Member to leave a comment.

ACCIDENT

German tourists among 13 dead in Italy cable car accident

Thirteen people, including German tourists, have been killed after a cable car disconnected and fell near the summit of the Mottarone mountain near Lake Maggiore in northern Italy.

Published: 23 May 2021 14:15 CEST
Updated: 23 May 2021 16:46 CEST
German tourists among 13 dead in Italy cable car accident
The local emergency services published this photograph of the wreckage. Photo: Vigili del Fuoco

The accident was announced by Italy’s national fire and rescue service, Vigili del Fuoco, at 13.50 on Sunday, with the agency saying over Twitter that a helicopter from the nearby town of Varese was on the scene. 

Italy’s National Alpine and Speleological Rescue Corps confirmed that there were 13 victims and two seriously injured people.

Italian daily Corriere della Sera reported that German tourists were among the 13 victims.

According to their report, there were 15 passengers inside the car — which can hold 35 people — at the time a cable snapped, sending it tumbling into the forest below. Two seriously injured children, aged nine and five, were airlifted to hospital in Turin. 

The cable car takes tourists and locals from Stresa, a resort town on Lake Maggiore up to a panoramic peak on the Mottarone mountain, reaching some 1,500m above sea level. 

According to the newspaper, the car had been on its way from the lake to the mountain when the accident happened, with rescue operations complicated by the remote forest location where the car landed. 

The cable car had reopened on April 24th after the end of the second lockdown, and had undergone extensive renovations and refurbishments in 2016, which involved the cable undergoing magnetic particle inspection (MPI) to search for any defects. 

Prime Minister Mario Draghi said on Twitter that he expressed his “condolences to the families of the victims, with special thoughts for the seriously injured children and their families”.

Infrastructure Minister Enrico Giovannini told Italy’s Tg1 a commission of inquiry would be established, according to Corriere della Sera: “Our thoughts go out to those involved. The Ministry has initiated procedures to set up a commission and initiate checks on the controls carried out on the infrastructure.”

“Tomorrow morning I will be in Stresa on Lake Maggiore to meet the prefect and other authorities to decide what to do,” he said.

SHOW COMMENTS